Help! I think my coral is dying!

[Ceradee]

I am in total panic mode! I have two lobophyllia corals that were doing great until last night, now they have exuded a ton of white stringy stuff and appear to be dying. I moved some rock work around yesterday in order to place a red open brain that I got for free from the LFS because it was dying. I have a history of being able to nurse corals back to health, so the LFS guy gives me the lost causes. After I added this coral and moved some rocks around, these two corals started spewing out this white stuff. Then all of the bristle worms, brittle stars, and even some feather dusters started spawning! I'm not sure what I did, but it really upset the water in the tank. My Euphyllia corals are also looking a bit sad, but not as bad as these two. Has anyone had experience with this, and do you think that these corals will pull through? I did a big water change today hoping to correct whatever went wrong yesterday, but I think it might be too late. The coral has the sticky stuff all over its flesh and its mouth is open. It also looks like some of its skeleton is showing. What should I do? I tried to move it away from another coral and into a shadier spot, but that just got me a stung and swollen finger... I would really appreciate any advice!

Here is a video from yesterday when it first exuded the white stuff
[video=youtube_share;AIitRyZUhQs]http://youtu.be/AIitRyZUhQs[/video]

Here is what it normally looks like:

Here is what that one and the other smaller one look like today:

45 gallon reef tank
LED lighting

 

[wscttwolfe]

Love or war.

I have no idea what a lobo spawning would look like, nor lobo chemical/digestive war, but those would be two things I would investigate

 

[Ceradee]

Love or war.

I have no idea what a lobo spawning would look like, nor lobo chemical/digestive war, but those would be two things I would investigate

After some more thought, I think that it was a digestive war brought on by stress, although it seems strange to me that it would attack its own tissue. The larger coral still looks really bad and I think that it is a goner, but the little one has rallied and even ate some silver side this morning. I'm really sad about the other one, I brought it back from the brink of death when I first got it, it was totally bleached and just a mess. It took months to get it healthy, and now in the span of minutes it looks like it is going to die.

 

[aaromano]

After some more thought, I think that it was a digestive war brought on by stress, although it seems strange to me that it would attack its own tissue. The larger coral still looks really bad and I think that it is a goner, but the little one has rallied and even ate some silver side this morning. I'm really sad about the other one, I brought it back from the brink of death when I first got it, it was totally bleached and just a mess. It took months to get it healthy, and now in the span of minutes it looks like it is going to die.

Those pics look like they are really irritated by something in the system. When my acans act something like that its usually because they have been irritated by nearby zoas and are looking to attack or I've let my alkalinity slip between water changes. Sometimes knocking some salt creep back into the tank accidentally will get some of my LPS fired up like that. Try a large water change and check your parameters, maybe run some carbon.

 

[Ceradee]

Those pics look like they are really irritated by something in the system. When my acans act something like that its usually because they have been irritated by nearby zoas and are looking to attack or I've let my alkalinity slip between water changes. Sometimes knocking some salt creep back into the tank accidentally will get some of my LPS fired up like that. Try a large water change and check your parameters, maybe run some carbon.

Thanks for the advice,
I think that I have figured out what happened. When I added the open brain coral, I moved some rock work around and I saw some goopy slime in one of the little crevices. I think that this goop may have been the decomposing remains of my royal gramma, whom I have not seen in a couple days. The fish could have also died after this event, but either way I really disturbed something that led to the water parameters getting super out of whack. This would also lead to a mass spawning event by all of the bristle worms, brittle stars and feather dusters. I did a 1/3 water change the next day, changed my carbon out, and dosed with Kent Nano reef A & B, and that seems to have calmed things down a bit. The water change actually caused some stars and worms to spawn again, but not nearly as much as the first time. My little lobo looks totally back to normal today, and the bigger one is hanging in. It still looks terrible, but I can tell that it isn't dead and is trying to heal itself. I put it in a shadier spot to reduce stress while it regrows its tissue. As soon as it looks like it is able, I am going to try to feed it a little chunk of silver side with some reef chili.

Another strange thin about this incident is that the other LPS did not react at all! Does anyone know exactly what species these two corals are from? They look different from my big one, but I'm not sure if they are actually different or not.
Here is the other LPS

 

[Ceradee]

Well, I think the crisis ha ended. Here is how my coral looks today, much better and on the mend.

 

[SantaMonicaHelp]

Nice to see your coral recovering!